A Visit
by DeoVacuus
Summary: In which an older Beast boy goes to visit someone very close to him.


A VISIT.

In which an older Beast boy goes to visit someone very close to him.

Fanfiction by DeoVacuus, I in no way shape or form have own the Teen Titans and they remain the complete possession of their copyright owners. I make no money off of this story; it purely exists for mere entertainment value.

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Beast boy picked up the bouquet of flowers from the bed and fixed his tie again. He shuffles out the door into the hallway. It was Friday. The Tower was silent. Robin and Starfire had fled to an unknown place and Cyborg was probably hiding in the garage.

He sighed. It got like this almost every night, but Friday date-nights were always the worst. Silence reigned in the once happy Tower as he passed Raven's unoccupied room.

Hopping onto his moped he raced from the Tower's underground tunnel towards the city. He felt in the darkness the crushing weight of leagues of water being held up over his head by the thin layer of hard rock. The moped sped on with its green rider, the headlamp the only light in the oppressive dark.

Soon, too soon, he emerged topside to the controlled chaos of the living city. His eyes wandered from the trees to the passively moving couples in Jump City's largest park as he sped deeper into the heart of the city. He tried to believe that it was the cold wind that brought tears to his eyes.

He stopped outside of a bookstore. A green hand opens the door, just as it did every Friday night. The old man who owns the store looks at him and gives him a sympathetic nod.

'_He can shove his pity…'_

Beast boy shrugs. He had no need for pity. Nor does he want it. He has his routine. He has his past. He has his love.

Beast boy wanders through the shelves to the small yet cozy children's section. It is well known and he carefully selects a book full of colorful happy pictures. He smiles at the corny story of a happy kitten and a happy ending. He passes back through the section and up to the shopkeeper.

The old man just looks at him sadly. "It's been years son. Years. You know I 'lost' my Sarah a decade ago to Alzheimer's… Young man, if you ever need to talk…"

Beast boy gave him a twisted smile that was too full of teeth can too full of pain.

"It gets better, easier. You learn to let go. You just have to let go."

"I won't forget her."

The old man looked away and didn't look up as the green young man stormed out without his change.

Beast boy carefully rearranged the flowers and the book protectively as he hopped back onto his moped in the gathering dusk. He wouldn't be late. He was never late. He hadn't been late on a Friday since the routing began more than two years ago. He was never late. And even if he was late it wouldn't matter.

With the picture book and small bouquet Beast boy sped through the streets. He felt his solitude, his difference, his loneliness, and his separateness from all the people around him. They moved, swayed, lived, breathed … loved. It was the love that brought him to his knees in rage, in sadness. The Taj Mahal, the Eleanor Crosses, the Casa di Giulietta, the everything. It was all for love. Human accomplishment built up an altar for one emotion, and it was the same emotion that had dealt him such a cruel hand.

He arrived outside the fence and rang to enter the grounds. The gates were opened and he sped up the long drive towards the porch and the door. He looked up at the large renovated Victorian mansion. Its large and open grassy gounds, its impressive size, its boastful columned porch. The house gleamed white as bleached bones even in the dying light, sterile.

As he walked the steps onto the railed porch he glanced at the spans of windows. All barred on the outside.

He was expected and let himself in. It was routing. The house thrived on routine, flourished on it, leeched on it. The tiled floor make soft tapping thuds as his shoes made contact. Gravity sill worked. The world still spun. So why did it seem as if every time he entered here it was the end? The world would stop, the sun would die. As it should have months ago. When he lost the final clinging shreds of hope.

He glanced up at the portraits of graying old men, smiling or looking stern. Each finely framed with a small inscription underneath of names and dates. They always watched him. Every time he passed he thought some of them looked encouraging; others disapproving, sternly staring at him to go back. He walked on. He had a routine, it was Friday, and he had brought his flowers and a trinket.

He hated this. He loved this.

Seeing her was always paradoxical. His heart would soar with illogical hope he'd thought dead until minutes ago, and it would shortly be crushed again only to be revived like Lazarus next week. He looked around the house. It seemed watchful. The environment was not too loud. Was it nice? Was it good? How he longed to peel back every closed door and question every person. Was this the right decision? Was this where she would be cared for best? So many questions. No hope.

Doctor Ahrens appeared out of a room down the hall. Beast boy strode forward towards the crinkly eyed doctor who smiled at his approach.

"How is she?" Beast boy asked anxiously, slightly mangling the flowers as he wrung his sweaty hands together.

"Same as you saw her yesterday."

"So she's still drugged to the gills." The words snarled out and whipped at the kindly old face like red lashes.

"Now you know we can't help that," the doctor said his furry eyebrows lowering. "She's comfortable."

"But not getting better."

"Time. Things take time, progress takes time. But in reality she will probably never recover, even with the neuroleptics. She's comfortable, and really, that is the best we can do at this point in time. At least until science catches up. She even has lucid moments, when everything comes back. She knows who she is, she _remembers_." The doctor raised his hand as Beast boy opened his mouth, "And yes, we do call you immediately every single time. And you know, she asks for you in those moments."

The doctor had said it to be kind, comforting. It wasn't. It stung, as it always had. Her grip on him, his grip on her. And he always knew about her brief brushes with reality. They sent him sprinting madly at all hours, sometimes half naked across the city to her. Frantically sprinting, flying, driving. He once even stole a car when he thought it would be faster. (Don't tell Robin.) One phone call and he would rush to her. Only to be too late and she was lost in herself again. And he would be crushed again.

He gritted his teeth against the past. He had a routine, and he relied on it as the only thing to keep him going. Every night he could spare he was there. Every Friday was 'date night'. Every Sunday they went for a stroll if he could convince her and she wasn't catatonic. He always brought her a small gift; books worked nicely, especially ones with large colorful pictures. Happy books to cure her frequent times of unhappiness when she would scream for hours until she fell asleep or she lost her voice.

If only there was a cure. He would go to the ends of the earth, he would gnaw off his own arms, he would die for a cure. But there was no cure, and there would never be a cure. To her mind or his broken heart.

"She hasn't acted up?" The green man questioned, shivering at the last recollection when the drugs had been unable to suppress her… darker nature.

"No. the new doses are good, and if we see any signs, we'll switch her to something stronger. Or add more metal to the frame of her room." Questions like these made the doctor uneasy. Usually patients just _believed_ they had powers instead of actually having them.

Beast boy gave him a nod and continued on down the stretch of hallway to a flight of stairs. White linoleum, white walls. He had asked for her room to be painted, but they had refused. It might rile her up. How he wished it was the color of her old room. Even without color on the walls he demanded that her bedding and pillows and any furniture was in her favorite colors. It had taken nearly throwing the head nurse over the roof before they had agreed. He had never thought himself to be prone to violence of any manner, until she had needed him. She brought out the protector in him, she brought out his beast.

Each door had a lock on the outside and interchangeable name plates with added clips for pages of health records and personality notes. Her door was different. Her room was different. The floor she was on was different. The third floor belonged only to her, as it was dangerous for other patients to be too near if she exploded. The room was a cement and steel cell placed into the otherwise normal house. A cage. A cage. A cage. Beast boy hated cages. He hated how she was kept with drugs, reinforced doors, barred windows of shatter proof safety glass. There was minimal furniture. Less things to throw.

He pulled out a key from around his neck. The metal was warm from where it had rested against the skin on his chest over his heart. The door was heavy as he cautiously slid it open. The room was as it usually was, clean and tidy. Only on bad days was it wrecked. On really good days she would move things about in some small attempt to decorate it. Push the bed over against the wall, move the chair to the center, push the bed into the corner, put the chair on top of it, and so on.

His heart thudded ad he almost dropped the children's book as he entered. The sight of her thrilled him with excruciating throbs of love that were so intense they resembled pain. The sight of her jarred him with dashed pathetic hope. He loved her, he loathed her. He would give anything for her; he would give anything to be free of her.

She turned and the dying sun caught her face. He loved her. Her skin glowed like smoky satin, her eyes flashed with deep pools of purple, and he was trapped again. By memories of the few years they had actually shared completely, by fate, by love, by her, by himself.

He laid down the book and walked over to her, "Hello Raven. I love you."

Dark lavender eyes looked at him suspiciously, her pale brow shifted as it had a thousand times before at this same remark, and the same words left her mouth and scarred his back, "Who are you?"

He smiled at her as nonthreatening as possible in an attempt to mask how much those words hurt. He had gotten very good at that at least over the ears. A mask. A mask for a beast, towards a beauty who would never remember. A beast that could never forget. It was knife to his brain. It was a thousand dying rat squeals, a wordless curse to the uncaring mechanical universe, a small murder of some of his sanity. At times like these he felt like he would go mad, but at least if he did he could have the room next to hers in Jump City's Home for the Mentally Ill.

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A/N:

Hey everyone. This is my first fanfic, reviews and critique make a world of difference. Hope it wasn't too short. Thank you for reading.


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